|
Election Blues: How A Blind Man Saw The Just Concluded Elections By Prince Charles Dickson Jos, Plateau Nigeria
This is my third take on the just concluded elections, first I stated that this was an election by all means rigged, I looked at the issues of fairness, credibility, violence and the rigging, on my second take, it was n the fact that how are we going to mourn the PDP's victory and the implication. For all the hate we can muster, all the cries, the elections has come and gone, we are weeping, the good, the bad and the extremely ugly.
The elections were generally a terribly conducted one, Prof Iwu did a terrible job of the whole election. If Abel was a victim of the tarzarce syndrome, if he was held captive, Iwu was the opposite, he was well aware of the task ahead, he knew that he was to rig and achieve results at all cost...few weeks to the election the President told him publicly in a veiled statement that this election was a do or die affair.
So from inception his job detail was 'to rig by all means necessary. He was given the ammunition, he was well informed ahead and in our usual way of feigning ignorance even in the face of reality we refused to accept the fact that failure was imminent. First he started the no observer, monitor issue, he could hardly differentiate between monitoring and observing, then he started the electronic palaver, he kept towing the line of doom, what did the National Assembly do, what did we say, we just watched and the act was perfected into an art and the result is evident that even a blind man can see.
Resident Electoral Commissioners were lords, Iwu, the ultimate, we are complaining but again I ask what are we complaining about, why are we so naive. On election day proper, it is no news that despite the shift in time from 8.00 to 10.00am, election on an average started by 2.00pm in most places, electoral items were missing in almost 70% of polling units, in several places elections could not hold because INEC did not print and provide ballot papers, the Presidential ballot papers had no serial numbers, and was insufficient in most parts of the country, incorrect polling materials were delivered, there was shortage of ad-hoc staff as was the case during the gubernatorial. In all this the INEC boss scored himself 80%, now I cannot question how he became a professor.
INEC has refused to accept that it conducted an election that was marred by lack of organization, significant evidence of fraud, procedural irregularities, incidents of ballot stuffing and hijacking, government or better put INEC magic during result collation most especially during the Presidential. Alteration of results was a norm; sensitive electoral materials were stolen by ghosts, and ad-hoc staff ran away with materials to only INEC knows.
And we cry foul, what did we do when INEC was attached to the Presidency as a hand bag, with Obj appointing anybody and everybody as REC, with no transparency requirements, the rigging certainly was not on Saturday rather it was well planned and executed. INEC was left to depend on the Executive, and with a budget of 54.5 Billion, more than most States of the country; we still goofed and failed woefully. In 2003 Abel rigged but at least we the INEC then was prepared for an election, but sadly we experienced a widespread lack of confidence and this was seen in the final product. INEC kept missing deadlines throughout the entire period.
The body lacked transparency in its decision and conduct; it was selective and inconsistently consistent in its conduct. We cried that the Voters' registration was a mess, some persons said we were not patriotic, that we should shut up, but we saw the under age voting from Katsina, Borno, Bauchi to Kano, the so-called data capture turned to be rigging captured in advance, the final voters' register as sighted by few people was poor, blurred pictures, double entries, what more after the exercise the laptops used disappeared to a top government functionaries business…a blind man saw this clearly...
This whole election, with congrats to Yar'adua yet was like the exercise I would narrate in the next paragraphs.
A lawyer purchased a box of very rare and expensive cigars, then insured them against fire among other things. Within a month having smoked his entire stockpile of these great cigars and without yet having made even his first premium payment on the policy, the lawyer filed a claim against the insurance company. In his claim, the lawyer stated the cigars were lost "in a series of small fires."
The insurance company refused to pay, citing the obvious reason: that the man had consumed the cigars in the normal fashion. The lawyer sued ... and won! In delivering the ruling the judge agreed with the insurance company that the claim was frivolous.
The judge stated nevertheless, that the lawyer held a policy from the company in which it had warranted that the cigars were insurable and also guaranteed that it would insure them against fire, without defining what is considered to be unacceptable fire, and was obligated to pay the claim.
Rather than endure a lengthy and costly appeal process, the insurance company accepted the ruling and paid $15,000.00 to the lawyer for his loss of the rare cigars lost in the "fires." NOW
FOR THE BEST PART.... After the lawyer cashed the check, the insurance company had him arrested on 24 counts of ARSON!!!! With his own insurance claim and testimony from the previous case being used against him, the lawyer was convicted of intentionally burning his insured property and was sentenced to 24 months in jail and a $24,000.00 fine.
The fact is that we were in a game trying to outwit ourselves because we are always forgetting fast and learning slow, INEC gave us the signs but we did not see what a blind man saw very clearly...let me ask in terms of campaign spending, did PDP not exceed the limit using State resources and gaining uneven advantage, and uneven playing field...Haba why call a monkey a man simply because they have similar characteristics.
INEC told us they would rig right from the whistle; we took them for granted...abeg let us pay the price o jare like my Yoruba brother would say. From South Africa to Port Novo we moved Ballot papers, it made little difference, bad cannot be good, how much more get better, so from the bad in 2003, we beat ourselves... it only can get worse and indeed, it was the worst form of abuse to democracy, but let me remind us this is Nigeria, We shall overcome, who will save us...shaking my head and holding my waist...do I say Yar'adua...oh. ..before I am stoned may the Almighty Allah save us.
|